Community & Population Health Community support of the local health care system is vital for sustainability and growth. Learn how to create a healthier and more engaged community by working with The Center.
Health Information Technology Consulting As the national knowledge center on rural electronic health record adoption, The Center offers comprehensive services targeted at rural hospitals, rural health clinics and state and national HIT programs.
Leadership Success begins with strong, informed leadership. The Center offers a variety of services, on-site and remotely, to leaders to assess strengths and identify areas of useful performance improvement.
Workforce The Center understands that rural health care facilities face unique workforce challenges. Since 1991, The Center has assisted rural citizens, health professionals, educators and policymakers with design and implementation strategies to assure the availability of quality health care.
Strategic Planning Effective planning is critical for organizational success. Expertly facilitated services conducted by The Center’s staff of national rural health experts will help hospitals and organizations achieve this success.
Performance Improvement The Center offers a complete spectrum of rural health performance improvement services. With support from The Center, clients succeed in aligning people, processes and resources with their mission.
Technical Assistance & Services Center (TASC) TASC provides performance improvement resources to CAHs and state Flex Programs on quality, finance, operations, systems of care and population health.
Small Rural Hospital Improvement Grant Program (SHIP) SHIP provides funding to approximately 1,600 participating hospitals in 46 participating SORHs to help small rural hospitals participate in value-based payment and care delivery models.
Network Technical Assistance (TA) RHI provides technical assistance (TA) to over 60 networks in the Development and Allied Health rural health network grant programs.
Small Rural Hospital Transition (SRHT) Project The Small Rural Hospital Transition (SRHT) Project supports small rural hospitals nationally by providing on-site technical assistance to assist bridging the gaps between the current health care system and the newly emerging health care delivery and payment system.
Resource Library The Center's Resource Library features webinars, presentations, articles and toolkits developed by trusted industry leaders to guide and support rural health stakeholders.
Events Find information about upcoming webinars, workshops and more hosted by The Center or Rural Health Innovations.
Allied Health Webinars Find recordings and resources from recent technical assistance webinars for Rural Network Allied Health Training grantees.
Health Education and Learning Program (HELP) Webinars Eligible rural hospital leaders and staff can attend a HELP webinar to learn about current financial, operational and quality performance needs that impact their transition to the new health care environment.
Network Development Webinars Find recordings and resources from recent technical assistance webinars for Rural Health Network Development grantees.
Performance Management Group (PMG) Calls Learn from the experience of leading hospital administrators and nationally recognized field experts. PMG calls allow peer-to-peer education focused on preparing rural hospitals for new payment and care delivery models.
The primary goal of the Rural Community Ambulance Agency Transformation Readiness Assessment and associated resources is to help ambulance agency leaders in rural America assess the state of their agency’s readiness in the core competency areas created following the Critical Access Hospital Blueprint for Performance Excellence, adapted specifically for rural ambulance agencies from the Baldridge Excellence Framework for Health Care.
Leadership core competencies for the ambulance agency include:
Leadership must be aware of the critical role of population health in value-based payment models.
Senior leadership and mid-level managers/officers understand the critical role of population health in value-based payment models.
Leadership provides periodic messaging to volunteers and paid staff regarding broadening the agency's value to our communities and population-based health care.
The leadership team is focused on creating a culture change towards providing wellness and chronic care disease services in addition to emergency illness and injury intervention/care and medical transportation services.
EMS 3.0 is an EMS industry initiative to help EMS agencies and practitioners understand the changes that are needed in EMS to fully support the transformation of our nation’s health care system and to provide tools and resources to help them implemented these changes.
This topic guide defines Community Paramedicine (CP), outlines challenges face by rural community paramedics and highlights rural models and resources. CP is rapidly emerging as a central part of the transformation to value and population health for EMS.
This article discusses the concept of Informed Community Self-Determination (ICSD) in EMS. It is thought to be a useful tool to evaluate the community’s EMS, informing the community of current capability and limitations (costs, staffing), establish options for change, and inform the community of the relative costs of those options.
This 2019 document from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Office of EMS describes is a strategic map for a people-centered EMS evolution consistent with rural community EMS agency transformation to value and population health. It describes a vision for evidence-based, data-driven integrated EMS.
This landmark publication focused attention on the issues specific to the survival and improvement of EMS in rural America. Much of what is included in the document is aimed at policymakers but also contains many practical ideas that can, and should, be implemented at the local EMS agency level.
This 2004 publication was a visionary strategic roadmap in the model of the 1996 EMS Agenda for the Future but intended to specifically shape rural EMS. It provides over 120 recommendations, some of which can shape local agency transformation during strategic planning initiatives.
This 2019 publication funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Office of EMS has over 250 recommendations for creating environments conducive to innovation. Many of the local agency recommendations would enable improvements leading to EMS transformation.
The IHI Triple Aim Assessment is a brief nine question self-assessment. Upon completion, your organization's readiness to pursue the Triple Aim is presented on a scale of low to high, with guidance and next steps suggested.
This article discusses data analysis from 2005-2009 Medicare claims data to conclude that CMS could experience substantial savings if allowed to reimburse for alternative handling of 911 callers.
This guide is designed to define population health, describe strategies to improve the health of a hospital’s patient population, inform leaders why these initiatives are essential and explore potential partnerships. Short case examples provide supporting evidence of the capabilities necessary to institute programs that improve health outcomes within a defined population.
Developed to help rural health care organizations learn more about the concept of social determinants of health, and encourage rural leaders and care teams to support activities that help address these issues and improve health in their communities.
Rural health care leaders report challenges when trying to educate and engage board and community members regarding health care organization changes required to succeed during the volume-to-value transition. Yet, value-based care discussions should play a significant role in all strategic planning and should be included in organizational performance measurement. This document provides a list of conversation starting questions to help rural health care leaders facilitate value-based care discussions with board and community members.
With the support of the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, The Rural Hospital Toolkit for Transitioning to Value-based Systems (Toolkit) was developed to disseminate consultant recommended best practices and transition strategies identified through the Small Rural Hospital Transition (SRHT) Project. The Toolkit shares best practices for improving financial, operational and quality performance that position rural hospitals and networks for the future, as well as outlines strategies for transitioning to value-based payment and population health. Rural providers and leaders should use the Toolkit to identify performance improvement opportunities for their hospitals and networks, and develop strategies for successfully transitioning to population health.
Use this series of leadership tools to enable rural health care leadership teams to examine and clarify roles for achieving performance excellence during the transition to value-based health care. They are geared specifically toward administrative teams, board members and physician leaders.
This project is/was supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number UB1RH24206, Information Services to Rural Hospital Flexibility Program Grantees, $1,100,000 (0% financed with nongovernmental sources). This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.
The tentative topic for the August Flex VKG is Grant Logistics: Closing out the Flex Grant Year. Flex VKG webinars provide a forum for state Flex Programs to share successes, discuss challenges and brainstorm strategies for improvement and Flex Program excellence.
The tentative topic of the August TASC 90 webinar is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). This quarterly webinar will include updates from TASC, RQITA, FMT and FORHP, to include both the Flex Program and policies impacting CAHs.
